How to Read Eggs

A growing number of Americans know that almost all eggs come from chickens stacked in crates the size of shoeboxes, too small for the birds to lift their wings or turn around.

That knowledge hasn’t slowed egg sales, but it has led egg purveyors to a new lexicon that’s partly meant to inform and partly meant to mislead and confuse consumers who are trying to feel okay about loving eggs.

Even for people who don’t care at all and are just meandering through life sans ethical infrastructure, it’s tough to miss the words, because they also imply effects on our bodies. The birds and their eggs, like the egg consumers, are what they eat, and the hens ingest opaque mixtures of corn and grains and elements of animals that humans don’t eat.

Some of these egg-carton salvation words, like “natural” and “fresh,” are breathless